Hello,
Looking for some advice for the longest plan (1 year) which will keep my Australian mobile number active, but able to roam to Amman, Jordan so I can still receive SMS (+/- occasional phone calls) for banking.
I read here that amaysim is good, and called them. Initially they said international roaming was available to Jordan, but online, they say not to Jordan.
Telstra roam to Jordan ONLY if you are on a monthly plan (which js expensive) and NOT on prepaid. I converted to a prepaid plan at the advice of a Telstra rep when I was there and unfortunately, prepaid telstra plans are not supported there at all.
Failing this, does anyone know about SMS forwarding to an international number? Or call forwarding to an international number? That might work. I'm told that the networks don't allow it, due to the possible security issues this poses.
Looks like you could use Optus (average $5/month) or Vodafone (average $3.33/month) prepaid long-term plans. Neither are particularly cheap to actually use, but aren't too bad to be able to receive SMS.
Networks don't do any sort of SMS forwarding. You might be able to leave a phone in Australia that forwards the SMS for you.
Yeah, usually not allowed — though one work-around is to buy an Australian VoIP number and divert to that, which you can then forward to an international number or answer over the internet.